The Jerusalem Inception

Chapter 16





Later that night, when Lemmy returned from the synagogue, the door to his father’s study was still open, the lights off. His mother was working in the kitchen. She asked, “Where’s your father?”

“He wasn’t in the synagogue.”

She wiped her hands on her stained apron. “He likes to be alone when he’s upset. Next time you should ask him whatever you want, but do it in private.”

Lemmy thought of his father’s expression. “He’s angry because I questioned the authority of rabbis. It’s like I told them not to obey him.”

“Your father cares nothing for personal glory.” Temimah smiled sadly. “Sometime I wish he did. But he carries too much guilt for having survived while everyone else died.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I feel the same way. But your father can’t afford to indulge in weakness. As a leader he must project strength. It has taken me years to understand, to accept some of his decisions. I must serve him without a question. It’s my duty as a Jewish wife. And you must fulfill your duty, as well.”

“To get married?”

Temimah sighed. “You think it’s easy for me? But he is my husband. He is a tzadik, more righteous than all of Neturay Karta put together. We must trust his judgment.” She fixed the collar of his shirt. Smell of dish soap came from her hands. “Good night, Jerusalem.”

“Good night, Mother.”

Locked in his room, Lemmy read Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird, the story of a young boy with black hair and dark skin, who wandered around Europe during World War II, chased by primitive villagers and German soldiers. The boy told his own story, and Lemmy imagined he was hearing the boy’s voice as he chronicled his torments.

Long past midnight, the pages became hazy. Lemmy closed his eyes. Had the rabbis in Europe caused their faithful followers’ deaths? His father’s blue eyes stared at him from the dais, dark with fury, or with terrible pain.

He turned off the reading light and gazed into the darkness. He wondered where his father had gone after they had argued. It wasn’t safe in Jerusalem at night, especially near the border, where occasional Arab infiltrators from Jordan murdered Jews and slipped back across the border before getting caught. He had no desire to venture out from under the blanket, but he knew the pressure in his bladder would interfere with his sleep.

Walking down the dark hallway, his bare feet absorbed the coldness of the tiled floor, and he thought how long it would take to warm up again. He reached the foyer and found the door to his father’s study open. Light from a street lamp outside came through the window onto his father’s empty cot. Something must have happened to him!

Lemmy hurried to wake his mother up. Together they would go to a neighbor who owned the grocery store, which had the only telephone in Meah Shearim, and call the police. The thought of his father injured—or worse!—terrified Lemmy.

The sound of a sigh made him pause outside his mother’s bedroom. Through the closed door, he heard it again. Was she crying? Had he upset her with his questions and doubts? He turned the knob and nudged the door.

A section of the wall came into view, then the headboard of his mother’s bed, illuminated through the window by the same street lamp that shed light into his father’s study.

Another sigh.

The door opened further. Lemmy saw his mother.

Temimah was on her back, her head slightly up, her shaved scalp shining with sweat. She sighed again, her face almost happy. Her hands reached back over her head, pressed to the headboard. Her left knee was bent to the side, the white kneecap pointing at Lemmy. Her nightgown was pulled up to her waist.

The bed shook.

The door opened all the way, revealing his father, who crouched over her, holding her thighs apart, thrusting into her again and again—a slow slide backward, another thrust, a slide backward, a thrust. His mother’s sighs were hushed yet throaty. Her face twisted with each thrust in pained pleasure, her eyes locked on her husband’s face. The thrusts came faster, his father staring at the wall over the headboard, his beard trembling. Suddenly, he paused and pulled backward, detaching from her, and sat on his ankles. His right hand reached into his groin and started shaking rapidly.

Startled, she looked up at her husband and groaned.

The light drew the lines of her full breasts, heaving under the nightgown, the valley between her thighs suddenly vacant. She sat up and grabbed onto his shoulders, trying to bring him down onto her, trying to embrace his hips with her thighs. She moved up and down, grinding against him. She attempted to force away his shaking hand, to pin herself onto him, to direct his seed into her body. He used his free hand to shove her away, down on the bed. His right hand shook faster and faster until he froze, and his whole body seemed to tense up in a hard, arched way, and he looked up at the ceiling and grunted.

His right hand still capped his groin as he stepped down from the bed. He stood with his back to the door, unaware of Lemmy’s presence, and looked down at Temimah. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

She was lying on her back, her lower body naked, her legs open. She turned to the window and whimpered.

His back slightly hunched, the rabbi turned, took a step toward the door, and froze.

Lemmy stood in the doorway.

His mother was sobbing now, facing the other way.

His father did not move. They looked at each other for a long moment.

Lemmy turned, entered the bathroom, and closed the door. He did not turn on the light, but lowered the hinged toilet seat and sat down. The wooden seat was cold, and he shuddered. He rested his elbows on his knees, his chin between his palms. He stared into the dark, absorbing what he had seen, comprehending his father’s refusal to seed his mother. There was only one explanation. God had nothing to do with her infertility, and Lemmy realized that he had grown up without siblings because his father didn’t want more children.

And then a terrible thought occurred to him: Had his father ever wanted any children?

Lemmy’s lips trembled. Tears streamed down his cheeks.